Science versus Inference: Was Moses Cohen the Brother of Jacob Cohen?

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Amy

The case for concluding that Moses Cohen, Sr., who lived in Baltimore (1850) and Washington, D.C. (1860), was the brother of my great-great-grandfather Jacob Cohen is built almost entirely on inference. As I’ve described before, I have tentatively concluded that they were brothers based on the following bits of evidence:

The 1841 English census that lists as the children of Hart and Sarah Cohen the following: Elizabeth (20), Moses (20), Jacob (15), and John (14).
Hart Cohen and family 1841 English census
A passenger manifest for the ship New York Packet, dated July 7, 1848, that lists the following passengers: Jacob Cohen, Sarah Cohen, Fanny Cohen, Moses Cohen, and an infant named John Cohen. Source Citation
Year: 1848
Description
Ship or Roll Number : Roll 073
Source InformationAncestry.com. New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
Original data: Passenger Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1820-1897. Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls. Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36. National Archives at Washington, D.C.Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957. Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls. Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives at Washington, D.C.Supplemental Manifests of Alien Passengers and Crew Members Who Arrived on Vessels at New York, New York, Who Were Inspected for Admission, and Related Index, compiled 1887-1952. Microfilm Publication A3461, 21 rolls. ARC ID: 3887372. RG 85, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004; Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service; National Archives, Washington, D.C. Index to Alien Crewmen Who Were Discharged or Who Deserted at New York, New York, May 1917-Nov. 1957. Microfilm Publication A3417. ARC ID: 4497925. National Archives at Washington, D.C.Passenger Lists, 1962-1972, and Crew Lists, 1943-1972, of Vessels Arriving at Oswego, New York. Microfilm Publication A3426. ARC ID: 4441521. National Archives at Washington, D.C.
Headstones that identify the Hebrew name of the father of both Jacob and Moses Cohen as Naftali Ha Cohen (Hart being the Dutch and English equivalent of a deer, the tribe symbol for the tribe of Naftali)
Jacob Cohen’s headstone

Moses Cohen, Sr. headstone
The fact that both Jacob and Moses named a son Hart, the same name as Jacob’s, and presumably Moses,’ father, Hart Levy Cohen.
The fact that Moses had a granddaughter named Grace Cohen and that a bridesmaid of one of Jacob’s granddaughters was a Grace Cohen from Washington, DC.

These five bits of evidence were enough for me to reach the tentative conclusion that Jacob and Moses were brothers and that therefore the descendants of Moses Cohen were also my relatives. There was also additional “evidence” in my failure to find a Moses Cohen other than the DC Moses who fit as well; there were two Moses Cohens of the right age on the 1851 English census, but neither was the right one. I sent for marriage certificates for both of them, and they were not the sons of Hart and Rachel. I’ve already dug fairly deeply into the history of Moses Cohen and his children and grandchildren based on that hunch and those bits of evidence.

But I wanted something more scientific and definitive. I was very fortunate to find someone who was a direct descendant of Moses’ son, Moses, Jr. He had already done a DNA test with FamilyTreeDNA, so I asked my brother to do the same so that we could compare the results. That was almost two months ago, and I finally received the results late last week. I was very disappointed to see that my brother was not in the same haplogroup with the descendant of Moses, Jr., meaning that there was no genetic link between the two. I was bewildered and discouraged. I looked at all the hours I had spent researching Moses’ family and felt as if I had wasted a tremendous amount of time.

I am in touch with the wife of the Moses, Jr., descendant who was tested, and she also was disappointed, but not as surprised as I was. She told me that there was a family story suggesting that Moses, Jr., had been adopted and was not in fact the biological child of Moses, Sr. Suddenly, other bits of evidence started to make more sense.

The earliest document I have for Moses, Jr. is the 1850 US census. It lists Moses, Sr., living in Baltimore with his wife Adeline and eleven year old son Moses, Jr. Moses, Jr., is reported to have been born in Germany, and since he was eleven, born in 1839.

Moses Cohen and family 1850 census

Other documents record his year of birth as 1840. But Moses, Sr., was living in London in 1841, as seen on the English census of that year. I had been confused by that before, but had assumed it was some error.

Also, Moses, Sr. is variously reported to have been born in years ranging from 1820 to 1828, depending on the document. His headstone says he was 32 in 1860 when he died, giving him a birth year of 1828. Even assuming it was 1820, he would only have been twenty when Moses, Jr., was born. How would he have met a German woman at such a young age, had a child with her in Germany, but then been living without her in London a year or more after the child was born? And where were Adeline and Moses, Jr., in 1848 when Moses emigrated from London to the US on the same ship with his brother Jacob?

I decided I needed to find out more about Adeline, the woman who married Moses and the mother of Moses, Jr. I know that her birth name was Himmel from a birth record for their son Hart. I cannot find a passenger list for Adeline or Moses, Jr., nor can I find a birth record or a marriage record linking Moses, Sr. and Adeline with Moses, Jr. The earliest document I have found for Adeline is the 1850 US census above.

That 1850 census, seen above, show that living in the home next door to Adeline and Moses was a family with the surname Himmel: Jacob, Hannah and Moses Himmel. Jacob, like Adeline, was born in Germany. Both Jacob and Adeline Himmel had sons named Moses. I am going to guess that Adeline was Jacob’s sister, though I’ve yet to find anything to corroborate that.

So this is my new challenge: to find records that will indicate where and when Moses, Jr., was born and where and when Moses, Sr., married his mother Adeline. I am also going to focus on finding a biological descendant of Moses, Sr., so that perhaps I can find some scientific evidence to back up my inferences. In the meantime, I am going to continue to assume that Moses, Sr., was the older brother of my great-great-grandfather and thus to tell his story as best I can as well as the story of his children and grandchildren, including Moses, Jr.

Hart Cohen and Family 1851-1860: Philadelphia

Hart Levy Cohen and Family 1860 to 1870: A Decade of Transition

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Amy

By 1860, all my Cohen relatives were settled into life in the US, having been here for about ten years. Hart Levy Cohen, my three-times great grandfather, was living in Philadelphia with his three of his adult children, Elizabeth, Lewis and Jonas, and his son Jacob was living with his wife Sarah and their nine children, three servants, and one of Sarah’s brothers, Lazarus Jacobs. The other son Moses was living in the Washington, DC, area with his wife Adeline and their five children. Much would change between 1860 and 1870.

First, the decade started off with two major losses. Moses Cohen died on October 2, 1860, leaving behind his widow and five young children. Although the death record I found stated his birth year as 1828, other records would have given him an earlier year of birth, probably around 1823, making him only 37 or so when he died. He was buried in Washington Hebrew Cemetery.

Just three months later, the family suffered another loss when the family patriarch, Hart Levy Cohen, died at the age of 88. According to his death certificate, he died on December 29, 1860, of old age. He was buried on December 31, 1860, at Mikveh Israel Cemetery, where many of his descendants would also be buried.

Hart Levy Cohen death certificate

Hart Levy Cohen burial at Mikveh Israel Cemetery December 31, 1860

One has to wonder whether the death of his son Moses accelerated his demise, although living to 88 in the mid-19^th century must have been quite an accomplishment. Here was a man who had moved from Amsterdam to London as a young man, worked as a dealer in goods, and raised five children before losing his wife and moving to Philadelphia as a man in his 70s. He had adjusted to two huge migrations and lived a long life. I wish I knew more about what he was like and who his own (and thus my) ancestors were. A photograph would also be wonderful. But I feel fortunate to have found him at all and to have been able to learn something about this man, my great-great-great grandfather.

This was also a tumultuous time in American history. In February 1861, the Southern states formed the Confederate State of America, and in April 1861, with the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, the Civil War began and lasted until April, 1865, when the Confederacy surrendered to the Union Army in Appomattox, Virginia. Although I cannot find a military record I could verify as being for any of Hart’s sons, I found my great-great grandfather Jacob Cohen’s draft registration, depicted below. Jacob was listed as having been born in London, living at 136 South Street, where he lived for all or almost all of his years in Philadelphia, and working as a storekeeper.

Jacob Cohen Civil War draft registration 1863

I also found a record indicating that a Lewis Cohen enlisted in the Union Army on April 23, 1861, just as the war had started, serving as a private in Company H, Pennsylvania 22nd Infantry Regiment. The record notes that Lewis mustered out on August 7, 1861. There is also a second record for a Lewis Cohen indicating the he served a private in Company F, Regiment 122 of the Pennsylvania Infantry. I will have to keep searching to see if I can find any further military records to verify that one of these two Lewis Cohens was in fact my ancestor. I could not locate any military record for the youngest brother, Jonas, which seems a little strange since he would certainly have been of draft age, being only 32 when the war broke out in 1861.

Since both Jonas and Jacob are listed in the Philadelphia directory for 1861 whereas Lewis is not, it may be that Jonas and Jacob never did active duty during the Civil War. In 1861, Jonas was listed as a salesman, living at 210 South Street. In that same directory, his brother Jacob is listed as having a clothing store at 150 South Street and residing at 136 South Street, which may be where Jonas worked. The store was called Jacobs and Cohen and was owned by my great-great grandfather Jacob and his partner, Joseph Jacobs. I will write more about Joseph Jacobs in a subsequent post.

Cohens in the 1861 Philadelphia city directory

The business must have both changed and grown by 1870. On the 1870 census, Jacob’s occupation is described as a “broker,” and the city directories from that point forward more specifically describe him as a pawnbroker. His son Isaac was also described as a broker on the 1870 census, and his sons Hart and Reuben were both described as “clerk in store,” presumably their father’s store. This was the beginning of a long and extensive family business as pawnbrokers.

Jacob Cohen and family 1870 US census

The business was not the only thing that was growing between 1860 and 1870. Jacob and Sarah’s family had also grown between 1860 and 1870. In addition to the nine children they had already had by 1860, Jacob and Sarah had four more between 1860 and 1870: Lewis (1862), Emanuel (1863), Jonas (1864), and finally Abraham in 1866. Sarah Jacobs Cohen had given birth to at least thirteen children between 1846 and 1866; given infant mortality rates, there could have been a few more squeezed into the “off” years. By the time her last baby was born, Sarah was already a grandmother, but was not yet forty years old. She’d been having babies for twenty years. It’s a good thing Jacob’s business was successful. But much as I empathize with Sarah and all those pregnancies, childbirths, and the exhaustion that comes with every new baby, plus all the work involved in raising thirteen children, I am really glad that she did not stop. Their child Emanuel, her eleventh child, grew up to be my great-grandfather.

Meanwhile, Jacob and Sarah’s two oldest children, Fanny (Frances) and Joseph, were already on their own by 1870. Fanny, the only child born in England, had married Ansel Hamberg in 1866, according to the 1870 census, and in 1870, she and Ansel were living with their three daughters, Bertha (1866), Sarah (1867), and Hannah (1869). Like her father Jacob, Fanny’s husband was employed as a pawnbroker. Had he and Jacob met in the trade? Did they work together? It appears from the city directories that Ansel was working at a different address, but perhaps there was some connection between the two stores.

Fanny and Ansel Hamberg and family 1870 census

Fanny’s younger brother Joseph was still living at home and working in the clothing business at 225 S. 2d Street, not too far from his family’s home in 1868. By 1870, Joseph was married, and he and his wife Caroline had a one year old son Harry. Joseph was working as a tailor, according to the 1870 census and he and Caroline were living in the same ward and district as his family and had a domestic servant living with them.

Joseph and Caroline Cohen and family 1870 US census

Like their brother Jacob, his siblings Lewis, Elizabeth and Jonas were also working in the retail business during the 1860s. In 1862 Lewis and Elizabeth were both listed in the Philadelphia city directory as clothiers living at 210 South Street.

Lewis Cohen and Elizabeth Cohen in the 1862 Philadelphia directory

In 1863 Jonas and Lewis were listed next to each other in the Pennsylvania Septennial Census as salesmen. In 1867, 1868, 1870 and 1871, Elizabeth was listed as a clothier in the yearly Philadelphia city directory, and Lewis was listed as a salesman in 1868 and as a pawnbroker in 1871 (Jonas was not listed in either directory). Both Elizabeth and Lewis were living at 119 South 2d Street, not far from where their nephew Joseph was working.

I could not find Lewis, Jonas or Elizabeth on the 1870 census, but apparently that census was terribly flawed, resulting in a second count in some major cities, including Philadelphia. Even with a second count, it seems that the census taker missed those three Cohens.

Down in Washington, DC, Moses’ family had to adjust to his untimely death in 1860, leaving behind four children under ten in addition to his twenty year old son Moses, Jr. Moses, Sr.’s widow Adeline supported the children by working as a merchant, selling second hand clothing, according to Washington, DC, city directories in 1867, 1868 and 1870. By the time of the 1870 census, Adeline was still living with the four younger children, Hart, Rachael, Jacob, and John, but Hart was employed as a pawnbroker and Jacob as a clerk. On the census Adeline is described as “keeping house,” so perhaps by that time her sons were supporting her.

Adeline Cohen and family 1870 US census

Adeline and Moses’ oldest child, Moses, Jr., married Henrietta (Yetta) Loeb on August 16, 1862. According to his 1863 Civil War draft registration, he was, like his cousins in Philadelphia, working as a clothier. Tax rolls for 1864 and 1865 list him as a “retail dealer.” On the 1870 census, he was working as a clothier, and he and Henrietta had three children, Augusta (six), Myer (four), and Jacob (four months).

Moses Cohen, Jr. and family 1870 US census

Thus, by 1870, although Hart and his son Moses had passed away, their families were thriving. Hart’s four children in Philadelphia were all gainfully employed as merchants, starting in the clothing industry and eventually some of them becoming pawnbrokers. Similarly, Moses, Sr.’s widow and children were also involved in the clothing and pawnbroker businesses in Washington, DC. Jacob, my great-great grandfather, was well-established with an ongoing business in Philadelphia, and his children were following in his footsteps. He and Sarah still had many young children at home in 1870, including my great-grandfather Emanuel. The family was still living in Ward 4, but that would start to change as the next generation started to go out on their own, as we will see when we follow the family from 1870 to 1880.

That, also, would be a decade of transition for the family as Hart’s grandchildren became adults. These grandchildren were almost all first-generation Americans, not immigrants. Their story is an American story from start to finish.

Mystery Solved—I think

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Amy

As I wrote yesterday, I was somewhat befuddled by the existence of two men named Hart Cohen, born around the same time (1850-1851), both married to women named Henrietta whose birth names started with B. Although one Hart was born in Philadelphia and the other in Maryland, at first I (along with many other ancestry.com members) thought they were the same person and had their families intertwined on my family tree. After spending much time sifting through census reports and other documents, I was finally convinced that there were in fact two Hart Cohens married to two different Henriettas, one living in the Washington, DC, area his whole life and the other living in Philadelphia his whole life except at the very end of his life. Philadelphia Hart died in Washington, DC, in 1911, thus making the situation even more confusing. But there were in fact two separate men, not one man living a double life.

But was this more than coincidence? Was there any connection between them aside from all those coincidences? I went to sleep last night unsure about the answer to that question, but the last document I found before my post was a death record for DC Hart which revealed his parents’ names: Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel. Further research revealed that Moses was born in England, Adeline in Germany, and that they had had a son born in Germany named Moses before emigrating to Maryland and having DC Hart.

Hart Cohen DC death record 1926

I woke up this morning, determined to find some link between Moses Cohen, DC Hart’s father, and Jacob Cohen, my great-great grandfather and the father of Philadelphia Hart. After some searching, I first found Adeline’s death record and saw that she had died in 1895, already a widow, in Washington, DC, and was buried in Washington. I then tried to figure out when Moses, her husband, had died, and found a number of Washington, DC. city directory listings in which Adeline Cohen was described as the widow of Moses. The earliest one I found was dated 1867, meaning that Moses had already died by that time.

1867 Washington DC city directory Adeline Cohen as widow of Moses

In fact, in 1870, Adeline was living with DC Hart and her other children in Washington.

Adeline living with her children 1870 US census

That gave me an outer limit for when Moses, Sr., had died, and by placing a date limit on his death, I was able to uncover this record on ancestry.com:

Moses Cohen death record 1860

Notice his father’s Hebrew name: Naftali ha Cohen. This rang a bell, and I went back to my earlier research and found that on my great-great grandfather Jacob Cohen’s marriage record his father’s Hebrew name was recorded as Naftali Hirts ha Cohen.

Jacob and Sarah Cohen’s marriage record

This was one coincidence too many and enough for me to conclude that Moses, Sr. and Jacob were in fact brothers, that Moses had not stayed in England as I had concluded early on in my Cohen research, but had come to America just as all his other siblings had. I now also think that it is possible that the “Mordecia” [sic] listed as living with Jacob on the 1850 US census was probably his brother Moses, who had also emigrated in 1848 from England.

Jacob Cohen and family 1850 US census

His wife Adeline and son Moses, Jr., must have arrived sometime later, though I have not yet located a record revealing when they came. I will need to track down a few more documents to be sure—death certificates for Moses and Jacob and also photographs of their headstones.

But assuming my hunches are correct, Philadelphia Hart and DC Hart were first cousins, sharing a name, sharing an occupation (pawnbroker/jewelry store owner), having wives with the same first name, and sharing a grandfather for whom they were both named, my three-times great-grandfather, Hart Levy Cohen. The only real coincidence was that they both had wives named Henrietta.

I just love when the pieces come together. It is what makes this so much fun. Digging around in the muck, being totally confused and overwhelmed, and then that AHA! moment when suddenly it all makes sense.

Did My Great-Grandfather’s First Cousin Live Two Separate Lives?

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Amy

I have started tracking down the lives of the children of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, my great-great-grandparents, and all was going pretty well until I started to research their son Hart. It seems he might have been living two lives, one in Philadelphia, one in Washington, DC. Or perhaps not. Here’s what I have found; see if you have any ideas on how to resolve this one.

The first mention of Hart, obviously named for his grandfather Hart Levy Cohen who was still alive when he was born, is on the 1860 US census, listing little Hart as nine years old, so born in 1850 or 1851, depending on whether his birthday was before or after June 7^th, the date in 1860 when the census was taken. Since he was not listed on the 1850 census taken on July 25, 1850, he was obviously born sometime between July 25, 1850 and June 7, 1851 if he was actually nine on June 7, 1860.

Jacob and Sarah Cohen and family 1860 US census

Things start getting weird in 1870. I found two census reports for Jacob and Sarah and their children for 1870, one taken in June, one in November. The second one is labeled “Second Enum” for second enumeration so for some reason the census taker went to the neighborhood twice. What’s odd is that Hart is listed as 20 on the June version and 19 on the November version. I’ve seen age mistakes so often that this did not faze me in the least, but it does not help pin down Hart’s precise birth date.

It is the 1880 census, however, that really threw me. In 1880 there are also two census reports for Hart Cohen born in 1850 or 1851. One is clearly the right Hart: He was living in Philadelphia, working as a storekeeper, and was born in Pennsylvania of parents born in England. He is 30 years old, giving him a birth year of 1850 or 1851. This Hart was married to a woman named Henreta or probably Henrietta and had three children, Jacob (6), Sarah (5), and Julia (4). If Hart and Henrietta had a six year old child, then presumably they would have been married no later than 1873, and in fact I was able to find a record of a marriage of Hart Cohen to a Henrietta Brunswick in Philadelphia on February 12, 1873 in the Pennsylvania marriage index.

Hart Cohen and family Philadelphia 1880 US census

All seemed to be making sense until I found another 1880 census report for a Hart and Henrietta Cohen residing in Washington, DC. This Hart was also 30 years old. I was ready to dismiss this as just as bizarre coincidence since this Hart was listed as having parents who were born in Germany. His own birthplace was given as Washington, DC. This seemed like it had to be a different person. The DC Hart and Henrietta had one child, a daughter named Fanny who was only a year old.

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1880 US census

I have a city directory for Philadelphia listing Hart Cohen as a pawnbroker in 1886, so I was convinced that the DC Hart was just a fluky coincidence of someone with the same name and age as my Hart marrying a woman also named Henrietta. The 1890 census was destroyed by fire, so I had to skip ahead to 1900 to see if I could follow up on the two Hart and Henrietta Cohens.

I could not find the Philadelphia Hart and Henrietta on either the 1900 or the 1910 census, but I did find the DC Hart and Henrietta on both. The 1900 census for the DC Hart provided a more specific birthdate—September, 1851—and had his birth place as Maryland, but this census listed his parents’ birthplace as England, not Germany as on the 1880 census. DC Hart was working in a jewelry store, a retail business not unlike those of my ancestors, so that seemed strange as well. Hart and Henrietta now had four children, Frances, Munroe, Isador and Jacob. But this Jacob was only 14 in 1900 so could not be the same Jacob who was 6 in 1880 and thus born in 1874. Once again I felt pretty certain that this was still not the same Hart Cohen who was Jacob and Sarah’s son. Despite the fact that his parents were now reported to be English-born, that he was a jeweler, that he married a woman named Henrietta and that he was also 30 years old, I again said that this was just a coincidence.

Hart Cohen and family in Washington, DC 1900 US census

On the 1910 census report for the DC Hart and Henrietta, Hart still had a jewelry store and was married to Henrietta and living with Frances and Jacob, two of their children. His birthplace was listed as Maryland, and now his parents’ birthplaces were reported as England for his father and Germany for his mother. This also seemed to suggest that this was not the Philadelphia Hart.

Hart Cohen and family Washington, DC 1910 US Census

But because I could not find the Philadelphia Hart on the 1900 or the 1910 census, I was a bit perplexed. Could he have died? Had he moved to DC? Even if that were the case, it would not explain the two 1880 census reports. Was he living a double life, having two wives both named Henrietta, one in Philadelphia and one in DC, and two different sets of children?

I decided to search for a death record for any Hart Cohen born around 1850, and I found one dated January 3, 1911. Since this record was from the District of Columbia Selected Deaths and Burials database, I assumed that this related to the DC Hart especially since the report said that the deceased was living in DC at the time of his death, but on a closer look I saw that it said that he had been born and was buried in Philadelphia.

I then found a second record in the Philadelphia Death Certificates Index that made it quite clear that this was the Philadelphia Hart, not the DC Hart: it listed his parents’ names as Jacob Cohew (sic) and Rachel Jacobs, both of whom were born in England.

Pennsylvania Death Certificates Index

Further research revealed that Hart’s body had been moved from its original burial location twice by two of his children, Jesse Cohen and Sarah Cohen Jonas, ending in a move in 1944 to a location in Mt Sinai Cemetery where both his son Jacob H. Cohen and a Ralph Brunswick were also buried. Since the Henrietta who married Jacob was born Henrietta Brunswick, this seemed (no pun intended) to be the final nail in the coffin establishing that the Jacob who died in January, 1911, was the Philadelphia Hart, son of Jacob and Sarah Cohen, my great-great grandparents.

If that conclusion is correct, then Philadelphia Hart was actually living in Washington, DC, at the time of his death in January, 1911, just nine months after the 1910 census recorded DC Hart (and no other Hart) living with his wife Henrietta and two children Frances and Jacob at 1806 4^th Street. Philadelphia Hart’s residence at his time of death was reported as 1737 N. 15^th Street in Washington. He was also a widower, and I was able to locate a death record for a Henrietta B. Cohen who was born in Lengnau, Switzerland and died in November, 1902. Had he moved to DC after Henrietta died? If so, why? And what, if any connection, might there be to the “other” Hart and Henrietta?

The other Hart, the DC Hart, was still alive in 1920 and living with his daughter Frances in the District of Columbia. He also was a widower at this time and retired. The census report lists his and his parents’ birthplaces as DC, but that is clearly wrong, at least for his parents, whose birthplaces had previously been reported at various times as England and Germany.

Hart Cohen Washington, DC 1920 US Census

My next find was a record of DC Hart’s death. He died August 10, 1926, in Washington, DC. His parents’ names were listed on this record: Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel. His wife’s name was Henrietta Baer. So not only did both Philadelphia Hart and DC Hart marry women named Henrietta, they both married Henriettas with a birth name that started with a B. It is no wonder that I was confused, and there are numerous trees on ancestry.com that have mixed together the two Hart and Henrietta Cohen families.

When I saw the name Moses Cohen as DC Hart’s father, it stopped me in my tracks. Could this be my great-great grandfather Jacob’s brother Moses, the one I thought had stayed behind in England? So far I have not been able to find whether there is a connection. Although I did find a ship manifest with a Moses Cohen emigrating from England to New York in 1848, the same year Jacob left England, I have no idea whether this is the right Moses Cohen. Tracking Moses Cohen and Adeline Himmel, I know that they had a son also named Moses before Hart and that Moses the younger was born in Baden, Germany around 1839. Adeline was born in Germany, and Moses must have gone there, married her, had Moses his son, and then moved sometime between 1839 and 1850 to the United States and settled in Maryland where DC Hart was born.

If this was in fact Moses, the son of Hart Levy Cohen, my three times great grandfather, it would explain why Moses named his son Hart. It might also explain why Philadelphia Hart was living for some time in Washington. Perhaps he wanted to be closer to his cousin DC Hart and his family. On the other hand, if there is no connection, then it is just a very, very strange series of coincidences.

What do you think?

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: DC

Science versus Inference: Was Moses Cohen the Brother of Jacob Cohen?

Hart Levy Cohen and Family 1860 to 1870: A Decade of Transition

Mystery Solved—I think

Did My Great-Grandfather’s First Cousin Live Two Separate Lives?

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